[151b] In a letter to me dated May 7th, 1879, he says:—
‘I see by Athenæum that Charles Tennyson (Turner) is dead. Now people will begin to talk of his beautiful Sonnets: small, but original, things, as well as beautiful. Especially after that somewhat absurd Sale of the Brothers’ early Editions.’
[152] Gay, The Beggar’s Opera, Act III, Air 57.
[153] Professor Skeat’s Inaugural Lecture, in Macmillan’s Magazine for February 1879, pp. 304-313.
[154] Mrs. Sartoris, Mrs. Kemble’s sister, died August 4, 1879. See ‘Further Records,’ ii. 277.
[155] Edwin Edwards, who died September 15. See ‘Letters,’ ii. 277.
[157] In a letter to me of September 29 1879, he says, “My object in going to London is, to see poor Mrs. Edwards, who writes me that she has much collapsed in strength (no wonder!) after the Trial she endured for near three years more or less, and, you know, a very hard light for the last year . . .
“Besides her, Mrs. Kemble, who has lately lost her Sister, and returned from Switzerland to London just at a time when most of her Friends are out of it—she wants to see me, an old Friend of hers and her Family’s, whom she has not seen for more than twenty years. So I do hope to do my ‘petit possible’ to solace both these poor Ladies at the same time.”
[158] On September 11 he wrote to me, ‘Ah, pleasant Dunwich Days! I should never know a better Boy than Edwards, nor a braver little Wife than her, were I to live six times as long as I am like to do.’
[160] See letter of October 4, 1875.